The US Attorney has dropped all charges against Cyril Wecht, the corrupt former coroner of Allegheny County. This was expected after the trial judge, reversing a ruling of the previous trial judge, granted a motion to suppress most of the prosecution’s evidence.
The ruling found that, although investigators obtained a search warrant and operated in good faith, the warrant was overly broad. Judge Sean McLaughlin said his decision was not “constitutional hair-splitting or a mere legal technicality,” but that’s exactly what it was. Although the warrant application proposed to seize a particular set of boxes, and although that particular set of boxes is exactly what was seized, the warrant that authorized them to do so merely referred to “boxes (approximately 20) and contents containing private autopsy files” and failed to specify exactly which such boxes. Because that specification, which was present in the warrant application, was left out of the warrant itself, the judge ruled that the warrant was overly broad, and suppressed the proceeds of the search.
As a result, Cyril Wecht gets off again.
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